The Ethics of Nuclear Energy: Risk, Justice, and Democracy in the post-Fukushima Era

Despite the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, a growing number of countries are interested in expanding or introducing nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy production and nuclear waste disposal give rise to pressing ethical questions that society needs to face. This book takes up this challenge with essays by an international team of scholars focusing on the key issues of risk, justice, and democracy. The essays consider a range of ethical issues, including radiological protection, the influence of gender in the acceptability of nuclear risk, and environmental, international, and intergenerational justice in the context of nuclear energy. They also address the question of when, and under which conditions, nuclear energy should play a role in the world's future supply of electricity, looking at both developing and industrialized countries. The book will interest readers in ethics and political philosophy, social and political sciences, nuclear engineering, and policy studies.

Behnam Taebi is Assistant Professor of Ethics of Technology in the Philosophy Department of Delft University of Technology and Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is the author of The Morally Desirable Option for Nuclear Power Production (2011) and the editor of several volumes, including The Socio-Technical Challenges of Nuclear Power Production and Waste Management (2015).

Sabine Roeser is Professor of Ethics in the Philosophy Department of Technische Universiteit Delft, The Netherlands. She is the author of Moral Emotions and Intuitions (2011) and the editor of numerous volumes, including The Ethics of Technological Risk (2009), Handbook of Risk Theory (2012) and Emotion and Value (2014).